Trent Zimmerman (North Sydney, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Health. Will the minister outline to the house how the government is guaranteeing Medicare and fully funding the National Disability Insurance Scheme? Is the minister aware of any alternative approaches?

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for North Sydney, who is not just a champion of Medicare, not just a champion of the National Disability Insurance Scheme, but is also a champion of advanced medical research. His electorate is one of those areas in Australia which is blessed with brilliant researchers, who we have been able to support with the largest growth in medical research funding ever as part of our overall package to support Medicare and health and hospitals more generally. In this very budget we have seen $1.4 billion added to the Medical Research Future Fund; $640 million alone in just the last year. That is part of our commitment to Medicare, along with the guarantee.

There is an alternative here. What we have seen from the opposition today is a sense of the growing desperation since the budget. They have been upset about the fact that for the first time in Australia a government has been able to simultaneously strike agreements with the AMA, the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, Medicines Australia, the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia and the Generic and Biosimilar Medicines Association. That is not a bad outcome. As part of that, we saw an extraordinarily incompetent and vile performance from the Leader of the Opposition on Friday. Addressing the AMA, Bill Shorten, according to Fairfax, accused the PM of 'buying doctors' silence'. What he said of the AMA to the AMA is that they took cash for no comment. What a politically vile and low sort of comment that is. This is in fact an independent body which have never failed to speak their mind and have never lacked courage in putting things forward to either side. What happened was they struck an agreement with us. They struck an agreement for guaranteeing Medicare. They struck an agreement for ending Labor's freeze. We did all of that and we invested $1 billion in Medicare indexation. We invested $2.4 billion in Medicare. By contrast, what do those opposite do? They go and accuse the doctors of Australia, the specialists of Australia, the GPs of Australia, of cash for no comment. He is experienced in some of the union ways and how they move with cash, but these doctors are independent and they are pretty offended by the vile comments the Leader of the Opposition makes.